If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

"Another Instance" Message

Hi,
A program that I use a lot displays the message "Another instance is already running" whenever you try to have multiple instances. Does anyone know if something like that just checks for the process name, or if it uses another method to tell if it's running? I'm asking because I'd really like to figure out a way to run multiples of it.
Thanks

Well... you have to be careful about running multiple instances of certain programs. Some will end up fighting over resources and having problems. For example, if both instances tried to call or modify the same file.... or if both tried to bind to the same port.

Re: "Another Instance" Message

Originally posted here by Jareds411 Hi,
A program that I use a lot displays the message "Another instance is already running" whenever you try to have multiple instances. Does anyone know if something like that just checks for the process name, or if it uses another method to tell if it's running?

Thats sort of like asking if you know what type of oil filter my car uses without telling you what type of car it is. Could the program use the process name to figure out if its running. Yes, but without knowing what program it is there is pretty much no definative answer that you can receive. I think even with the name of the program you probably won't get the answer you're looking for, but atleast theres a better chance of it.

Sorry for not providing enough info. The program I'm refering to is a game calledAstonia 3. If you guys can't tell me how it's doing it, is there some way I could figure it out myself? Maybe a debugger type programmer to go through step by step?
Thanks

Jareds~ Please listen to someone 40 years older than you..................RTFM

If you wish to continue playing Astonia (tm) 3 after your free test period is over, you will have to subscribe to the game. The subscription fee is US$ 9.95 per month per account (one account can have several characters, but only one character can be played at a time). To find out more about the subscription fee, go to Payment.

This is an online game with 32Mb of stuff stored locally on your machine. There are three ways it could work:

1. Checks for running process
2. Has a one byte array for on/off
3. On the gameserver

You can take #3 as a certainty, and either #1 or #2 if there are local resource constraints (like maybe it wants to use a specific memory block address) or conflict issues. That is a bit like "record locking" in commercial applications...............like only one person can edit a customer account details at once?

Hey jared, listen to Master Nihil.
Most of online games are designed to check about multiples instances to:
a) avoid user to load multiple copies into memory just because the games is slow on start;
b) avoid user to use multiple connections to game server FROM THE SAME CLIENT
Beware that multiple connections from a single IP can be considered an attempt to hack (e.g. Blizzard consider this as an attack) an they can ban you and eve sue you.

btw AFIK astonia client is a kind of very light client and its only used for "presentation".

No, I have multiple accounts. I'm not trying to be on 2 characters from the same account at once. Rather, I'm trying to play on two accounts at once on the same computer. But, it's not worth getting banned for, so nvm the question.